Toward that end, there are three areas that I must think about carefully every day. First, have we provided employees
with sufficient room to create value and to achieve self-realization? Do people just passively come to work
every day as requested? Or do they actively come here to fulfill their ambitions? Part of making sure it’s the latter
is having the right organizational structure – one that is as boundaryless and flat as possible. Many big companies
organize themselves around divisions and have very linear, functional structures. But Haier will do better if
it has project teams being formed according to market demands, made up of members from multiple divisions. In that kind of setup, the emphasis stays on what will serve the market, not what will please someone further up in the company hierarchy. Employees feel
they have a customer to answer to, more so than a superior.